


now there's only love in the dark

by ladililn



Series: luminous beings [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: (okay not really, 2017 solar eclipse fic, Established Relationship, Fluff, Inappropriate Use of Lightsabers, M/M, One Shot, Post-Star Wars: A New Hope, Pre-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, one day i WILL write a fic that actually deserves that tag but not today, only mace windu on a grumpy day would find this an inappropriate use of a lightsaber, there is lightsaber innuendo though if that helps)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-30 23:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12663810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladililn/pseuds/ladililn
Summary: Eclipses, far more than sunsets, taught Bodhi the meaning of the phrasedarkness falls: during those last few seconds, darkness seemed not just to fall but to plummet.Luke drags Bodhi to see a double eclipse. Can be read 100% standalone.





	now there's only love in the dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eisoj5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/gifts).



> I wrote the first 2/3 of this on August 21, aka the day of the total solar eclipse in the US. Then, extremely true to my M.O., I—well, I wouldn't say I _abandoned_ it, let's go with "left it in a state of suspension, along with several dozen other fics I occasionally pull up to work on and swear I'm going to finish someday." Every so often, that actually comes true! Today is one of those days.
> 
> Besides the original intent to publish this in conjunction with the eclipse, I also meant to write this as a gift to [Eisoj5](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/pseuds/Eisoj5), who at the time (aka August) was having a rough week and whose fic, [the Ur-Bodhi/Luke fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8910982), was giving me feels. (I mean, it always gives me feels, but the chapters she was publishing at the time (again: August!) were giving me _particular_ feels.) All of which is to say: this fic is late for every single one of its appointments, but what else is new.
> 
> Last thing: this fic was definitely inspired by Eisoj5's Bodhi/Luke, but I would never presume to write fic of someone else's fic (unless I got permission first—one of those extremely ironic rules of fanfic etiquette, I guess?). I did mentally end up setting it in the same universe as [my own Bodhi/Luke fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10868121) (currently in, um, one of those suspended animation states). I imagine it as taking place after that as-yet-mostly-unwritten fic, but this can 100% be read standalone.
> 
> (And yes, the title _is_ lyrics from _Total Eclipse of the Heart_. "Hey, I could make the title lyrics from _Total Eclipse of the Heart_ "! = 90% of the reason I wrote this fic.)

“Ten credits.”

“Ten credits?” Bodhi repeats—sputters, really. The vendor just grins.

“Once in a lifetime event,” she says. “Ten credits.”

“The _eclipse_ is a once in a lifetime event. Not your—‘sweet and savory orbballs.’ Which is redundant, by the way.”

“I’ll pay five,” Luke cuts in. The vendor turns her toothy smile on him, bright eyes narrowing to a glint.

“Nine.”

“Seven.”

“Nine, and that’s my final offer.”

“Deal,” Luke says, and produces credit chips. “Two of each, please.”

“Luke—” Bodhi starts to protest, but Luke just winks at him.

“Don’t worry,” he says, puffing his chest out in a startlingly accurate imitation of Han at his most insufferable. “I’ve got this. I have a job, you know.”

“We have the _same job_ ,” Bodhi points out. “They pay you the same they pay me.”

But he accepts the two sticks Luke hands him anyway. At the end of each is tied a string, from which dangle their costly treats.

“Watch out for those sunballs. They have a strong kick to them,” the vendor warns them, all cheer.

“Who taught you to haggle?” Bodhi asks as they leave.

“No one, really. Uncle Owen never let me do the trading on my own.”

“I could tell,” Bodhi says dryly.

“I tried to pull a walkout on Han, once. When we first hired him to get us off Tatooine. Didn’t work.”

Luke tries to take a bite from his moonball, but just winds up chasing the sticky orb in circles. He pulls back and frowns.

“Try again,” Bodhi urges, grinning.

Luke does. The moonball twirls away from him, always just beyond the reach of his teeth. Bodhi cracks up. Luke huffs in frustration.

“ _Bodhi_ —”

“Okay, okay,” Bodhi says, trying—and mostly failing—to stop laughing. “I’m sorry, it’s just—your _face_ —here, I’ll help.”

Bodhi transfers his own orbball sticks to one hand and stabilizes Luke’s moonball with two fingers of his other. Luke takes a huge bite. His eyes lock with Bodhi’s, juice pearling on his lower lip, and suddenly _Bodhi_ ’s the one swallowing. Luke pulls back, beaming, tongue already stained blue. His satisfaction is as adorable as the pouting had been, and Bodhi is forced to kiss him.

“You’re trying to get more than your fair share,” Luke murmurs against his lips, before pulling him in for another kiss.

They wind their way down the main street of Jemilla Heights, where food vendors and street performers and carnival games all vie for their attention. Laughter and music float through the air, mingling with the aroma of slow-cooked bantha ribs and incense. Sentients from every corner of the galaxy pack the street, garbed in every shade of the spectrum, chattering in languages both familiar and strange. It reminds Bodhi, to a certain and painful degree, of Jedha City—although he cannot remember ever experiencing such a cheerful atmosphere on his homeworld. Even the biggest festival days on Jedha were greeted with a kind of holy solemnity. Here, the mood is downright celebratory, joy and excitement almost managing to crowd out the ubiquitous tension of Imperial control.

Bodhi has to admit—absurdly overpriced, redundantly named, and logistically problematic though they may be—the orbballs _are_ delicious. Luke devours both of his within five minutes, once he’s figured out _how_ , but Bodhi takes his time, switching between the savory kick of the sunball and the sweetness of the moonball with every bite. He overpays for two damp cloths, and they clean the sticky mess off their hands and faces as best they can.

“Was it this hot on Tatooine?” he asks, dabbing the back of his neck with the cool cloth, sighing in relief.

Luke grimaces. “Usually hotter. Both of Tatooine’s suns were closer than the ones here.”

“Ugh.” Bodhi grew up complaining about the constant cold in the orbit of Jedha’s dying sun, but he doesn’t think he’d have preferred the alternative.

“It’s why we never got eclipses, either, even though there were three moons. None of them was big enough.”

Bodhi nods. “We got eclipses pretty regularly on Jedha—which was— _is_ —a moon itself. The best place to be during one was the Holy Quarter, because everyone would drop whatever they were doing to pray or meditate or—whatever their practice was.” He swallows, trying not to think of that last eclipse, the one not found in any almanac; tries not to wonder how many beings’ last moments were spent with heads bowed in prayer, blind to the death hurtling toward them. “It was—pretty incredible to witness, every time.”

“I’ll bet,” Luke says, sounding wistful for a place he never even saw. He laces his fingers with Bodhi’s as they walk.

Bodhi spots a couple of stormtroopers heading in their direction, and squeezes Luke’s hand to warn him. Casually, they wander toward the nearest stall and pretend to be deeply absorbed in its wares. Imperial presence on this world amounts to little more than a small listening outpost—to spy on the Hutts, probably, given the system’s proximity to Hutt space—but all the troopers stationed there seem to be on patrol today. It’s an all too familiar tactic. Any event that has the potential to bring the local populace together, to remind them of their history and culture, to unite them in spirit as a single people with a shared destiny—any event with the potential to ferment _rebellion_ , in other words—invites as showy a display of force as the Empire can muster. Which is why Bodhi hadn’t wanted to come, considering the enormous bounty on Luke’s head—Bodhi’s own Wanted holo had ceased circulation months ago, thank the Force—but Luke insisted.

“It’s a double solar eclipse, Bodhi,” he said, eyes shining. “Isn’t that amazing? We _have_ to see it. We’ll be careful, I promise.”

“You here to buy, or what?” says the vendor of the stall they’re using for cover, and Bodhi realizes that the object he’s been distractedly fingering is a leather harness designed for a six-breasted Askajian woman. He drops it, feeling heat rush to his face.

“Um—”

“I think we’re okay,” Luke says, eyes searching the crowd in a way that’s far less careful than Bodhi would like. “I don’t see them.”

“We shouldn’t have come,” Bodhi hisses, as Luke drags him quickly away. “It’s too dangerous. Ever since word got out that there’s a ‘rogue Jedi’ on the loose—”

Luke snorts. “Half of those alerts spelled it ‘rouge Jedi,’ so most people should be on the lookout for someone wearing a ton of blush—”

“—and carrying a lightsaber,” Bodhi says, meaningfully.

“I don’t just go around whipping out my lightsaber,” Luke says, looking affronted. Bodhi smirks, despite himself.

“Could’ve fooled me,” he teases, and Luke laughs. Bodhi tries to focus on that—Luke’s laughter, Luke’s hand in his, Luke’s stupid confidence, _Luke_ —and not on the anxiety strumming through his system.

Up ahead, a burning torch rises above the crowd, defying the heat and brightness of the day. Luke notices it at the same moment.

“What d’you think that could be?”

“I have an idea,” Bodhi says hesitantly, dropping Luke’s hand to duck beneath the outstretched arm of a Wookiee even taller than Chewbacca. “The storytellers on Jedha used to carry those. So people could find them, and to represent, you know, the communal fireplace—”

“Let’s go, then!” The stars are back in Luke’s eyes. He takes off toward the torch without even waiting for Bodhi, which is a little insulting, frankly, except that it’s Bodhi’s own fault for having told him so many stories stolen from Jedhan storytellers. Bodhi follows, pushing through the crowd with far less ease than Luke had.

The timing of his arrival is a stroke of luck—or perhaps the will of the Force, if he were to ask Chirrut. He finds his way to Luke’s side just as the wizened old crone—he’s glad, for Luke’s sake, that this particular storyteller looks _just_ as the archetypal storyteller should—begins a new tale.

“The last time the two moons of this world aligned with the two suns, casting every peak and valley into deepest shadow, the Zygerrian Slave Empire thrived, strangling near half the galaxy in its grip. Jemilla Heights was not the prospering metropolis it is today. No, indeed. It was a slave camp. Those who lived upon the Crag went down into the rock mines before the day’s first sunrise, and toiled away their breath and sweat and tears until long after the second sunset. The ones who survived the day stole a few hours of sleep. The ones who didn’t were cast into the Abyss.

“Tell me, tell me—why do we suffer so?

“Every time the natives tried to revolt, the cruel Zygerrians beat them down into the gravel. Year after year passed thus. A young woman called Nalhio, born into slavery, thought things should be different. Different, indeed. Nalhio had all the idealism and all the naivety of her youth. But something _was_ different.

“Tell me, tell me—how shall our people be free?

“Nalhio learned of the eclipse that was to come. The rarest of miracles: moon and sun, sun and moon, casting every peak and valley into deepest shadow. Nalhio hatched a plan. And she spread the word amongst her fellow slaves upon the Crag, and they spread it all over the Range, and soon, every slave on the planet knew the secret of the eclipse. And when it came, they were ready.

“Tell me, tell me—when does our suffering end?

“The moment the second moon blotted out the second sun, like a smear of ink on rock, the people dropped their tools. The Zygerrians were frozen in astonishment. Frozen, indeed. They were frightened. They knew not what to do. But all the slaves who had heard Nalhio’s message knew exactly what to do. They streamed out of the mines in droves, down from the Heights, out of the caves, from every nook and cranny where slaves could be found.

“Tell me, tell me—where does our safety lie?

“Nalhio had promised to lead them to safety, to a valley surrounded by peaks so high that no Zygerrian, beasts that they were, could surmount. But as they gathered here, on the very heights where we now stand, despair cast every heart and soul into deepest shadow. For the world was so dark that none of them, not even the most experienced scaler, not even the sharpest eye, could make out the path they had to take. The very shadows that cloaked their escape made safe passage impossible to discover.

“Tell me, tell me—who shall set our people free?

“As Nalhio cried out in desperation and despair, something appeared in the darkness. A light. A light, indeed. Long and thin and blue and bright—a _lightsaber_. A beautiful beacon shining from the highest peak, illuminating the dark, chasing away the shadows. The people turned toward that lightsaber and followed it out of slavery. To safety. To _freedom_. And when the second moon passed from the second sun, the Zygerrians found the mines empty and the chains broken. Their cruel reign was ended. Ended, indeed.”

“Indeed,” murmurs the assembled crowd, as one, and Bodhi feels at once lifted from a trance and cast back into the past. He’d forgotten, until this moment, that old custom of repeating the last word of a storyteller’s tale—a sign of respect, of gratitude, of the sense of communal transformation that all the best stories create.

“Indeed,” Bodhi murmurs, a few beats late. Luke’s fingers twine with his again, squeezing softly, and Bodhi turns to smile at him—and instead, catches sight of a man’s pinched and angry face over Luke’s shoulder. A man in an Imperial uniform.

He’s not glaring at them, but at the crone, humming and swaying, anchored by the long pole of her torch, while her assistant passes around the donation box.

Bodhi has a sudden and strong recollection of a Jedhan storyteller at the local cantina, extinguished torch propped against the bar. “They told me no more political stories. Problem is, all stories are political. So it is.”

“Come on,” Bodhi says, tugging at Luke’s hand. Luke looks like he wants to protest—he wants to talk to the crone, Bodhi can tell, ask her questions, probably—but he sees the look in Bodhi’s eyes and understands _something_ , at least. He tosses a few credits into the box with his free hand and allows Bodhi to pull him away.

“He wasn’t wearing rank pins,” Luke says when they’re out of earshot. Bodhi looks at him, surprised. Given Luke’s characteristically head-on approach to things—or _head first, eyes closed_ , as Leia once drily termed it—it can be hard to remember that he _is_ capable of subtlety, sometimes. “Must be off duty. I guess even Imperials like to have fun on their days off.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Bodhi says lightly. “Handing myself over to the insane leader of a terrorist organization ate up all my vacation days.”

Luke doesn’t laugh. Bodhi doesn’t blame him.

They find a recessed seat away from the bulk of the festival crowd, where Bodhi’s restive gaze can sweep for anything that looks like a threat. He reminds himself to take comfort in Luke’s rapidly improving sense for impending danger, his so-called “Jedi intuition.” True, it tends not to manifest in any detail beyond a vague “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” but some warning is better than none at all.

Hopefully it works even subconsciously, because Luke’s thoughts are elsewhere entirely. He’s frowning down at his comlink, turning it over and over in his hands.

“My grandmother was a slave.”

Bodhi’s heart constricts. It’s so painful and so _real_ that he has to stop himself from looking around to see if Darth Vader is lurking somewhere nearby, squeezing him to death from the inside out.

“She was?”

“Yeah.” Luke’s still frowning, still focused on the comlink as though trying to take it apart with his mind, piece by piece. “That’s what Uncle Owen told me. He’s not—well, he _was_ my uncle, but not directly. He was my father’s stepbrother, I guess.”

Luke sighs, sitting back. His gaze roams over the crowd without seeming to see. Bodhi stays silent, waiting for him to marshal his thoughts.

“Uncle Owen was already grown when his father married my grandmother. I guess he—my grandfather, I mean—fell in love with her and married her to set her free. Or he bought her and set her free, and _then_ married her, or—I don’t know.” Luke shakes his head, looking down again. “There’s so much I don’t know. Uncle Owen didn’t like talking about the past. He didn’t like me asking questions. And he lied—about my father being a Jedi, anyway. There’s so much he didn’t tell me, and now it’s too late.”

“What about your father? If your grandmother was a slave, wouldn’t he…”

“That’s exactly it!” Luke explodes. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense, does it? If he was born a slave and left to become a Jedi, then the Jedi would _know_ , wouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t they _do_ something about it? Why would it be left to my grandfather to save my grandmother—and what about everyone else, the rest of the slaves, all over Mos Espa and the salt flats and—”

Luke breaks off. Bodhi doesn’t know what to say, because Luke is right: it doesn’t make sense.

Bodhi knew, of course, that there was slavery in the galaxy within living memory, especially among Outer Rim planets, near ubiquitous in Hutt-controlled space. It was something the Empire made a particular point of in history classes: how slavery thrived under the corruption of the Old Republic, how Palpatine’s new order swept in and set the galaxy free. It was one of the things Bodhi kept going back to, every time doubt and disquiet about Imperial rule threatened to swallow him whole, back before it finally did. The Empire had ended slavery in the galaxy, once and for all. That was good. That was right. That was just.

He doesn’t know how to feel about any of it now. Every time he thinks he has a solid grasp on the universe, a sense of right and wrong and up and down and his own place in it all, the gravity falls out from under him. He wonders whether he’ll ever find stable ground, or if he’ll spend the rest of his life unlearning constellations.

“That story,” Luke says suddenly, startling Bodhi back to the present. “You think it’s true?”

“I—I don’t know,” Bodhi says, hesitant. “This system _was_ part of the Zygerrian Slave Empire, which the Jedi brought to an end—I know there are stories of Jedi sneaking onto planets to help slaves escape. And the last double eclipse would’ve been around that time. But Zygerrians had— _have_ , I guess, since they’re still around, in smaller numbers—excellent night vision. So it doesn’t really make sense that they would’ve been helpless during an eclipse. And why wouldn’t they have known it was coming? Even if—”

He stops. Luke’s fiddling with the comlink again, a frown etched on his face in granite.

Bodhi takes a deep breath, and switches tacks.

“When I was little,” he begins, “my friends and I used to follow storytellers around the Holy City, begging them to tell our favorite story again, or tell us what happened next in that other story, or asking endless questions about the one they just told.” He smiles at the memory. “Some storytellers tolerated us more than others. A gang of starvingly curious kids isn’t the most lucrative audience. And our questions weren’t always all that thoughtful. I remember one old woman—she looked a lot like the one we saw today, actually—hated it when we’d ask whether her stories were true.

“‘You’re asking the wrong question,’ she said. She wouldn’t tell us what the right question was. We couldn't understand it. We just wanted to know whether those incredible things she told us about had actually happened. Why was that wrong?

“But maybe it didn’t matter. I think that’s what she was trying to say. It didn’t matter whether every last detail of her stories was literally, technically true. It mattered that she _told them_. And that we listened. That they—stuck with us, the stories, that they meant something. That they…mattered.”

Bodhi shuts up. In his head, that sounded a lot better. Out loud, he’s pretty sure he managed to make the point that stories matter because they matter, which is a circuitous argument at best.

But Luke’s hand covers his, and when he looks up Luke’s smiling, brighter than either of the dimming suns, and Bodhi thinks maybe it doesn’t matter that his words never come out the way he means them to, anyway.

 

Even with the semi-regularity of solar eclipses on Jedha, Bodhi has never known one to be anything less than awe-inspiring. He never bothered to track them on Jedha. If he was paying attention, he could tell one was coming when the cold became _especially_ cold, when the air shook off any meager warmth NaJedha’s dying sun had to offer with a suddenness that belied the stale predictability of life on the sanctuary moon. If he wasn’t paying attention—after all, cold is cold, and after a certain point there’s not much telling the difference—he often didn’t catch on until the last thirty seconds before totality, when the world became a TIE fighter cockpit plunged into stealth mode. Eclipses, far more than sunsets, taught Bodhi the meaning of the phrase _darkness falls_ : during those last few seconds, darkness seemed not just to fall but to plummet.

One minute until totality. The eclipse setting on his goggles blocks out everything _except_ the suns, so when he turns to see how Luke is reacting, he only sees blackness. He reaches out, tries to find Luke’s hand, but it’s hopeless in this pressing mass of sentience. In a minute, when they can remove the goggles—he’ll see Luke’s reaction then.

The second moon squeezes off the last drop of light from the second sun like water from a sponge, and Bodhi strips off his goggles to drink in the view. All around, in his peripheral vision, people are doing the same. For this one moment, the city comes together in a hushed awe that reminds Bodhi achingly of home. For all his anxiety over Luke’s insistence on coming here, he has to admit that this—this spectacle, this once-in-a-lifetime experience—is worth it. The twin auras exceed any possible expectation and defy all description, circles of golden light blazing out of the darkness.

He looks to see Luke’s reaction, and sees—nothing. That is, there’s an ancient Ithorian on his left where Luke had been standing earlier, when they put their goggles on. To his right stands a family of Bothans, the littlest girl perched on her father’s shoulders. Ahead a little ways: a stormtrooper, helmet turned toward the sky. Bodhi turns in a full circle, stands on his tiptoes—people all around, but none of them are Luke.

Just before real panic can kick in, the Ithorian gasps loudly. Bodhi automatically turns to look. And then his own breath catches in his throat.

A third light has appeared in the sky.

Lower down, closer to earth than the auras, somewhere amid the lower reaches of the towering peaks—a beam of shining blue. Bodhi knows instantly, breathtakingly, exactly what he’s seeing. Luke and his lightsaber, lighting up the darkness.

It’s not just Bodhi and the Ithorian who’ve noticed. A murmur has sprouted from the silence, spreading tendrils rapidly through the audience. The crowd jostles. The air itself seems to swell. Total strangers nudge their neighbors, pointing out the beam of blue, saying to each other— _is that_? and _do you see_? and _could it be_?

And then the light is gone, as suddenly as it appeared, and Bodhi sends up a little prayer to the Force that Luke won’t get caught.

“Goggles up!” goes the cry, issued by festival organizers and echoed throughout the crowd; Bodhi fumbles, gets his on just before the first bead of sunlight appears at the first aura’s edge. Within minutes, the second sun has begun to emerge as well. The end of an eclipse never holds people’s interest like the lead-up, but this audience doesn’t disperse. The murmur grows into full-blown babble, repeating earlier sentiments but louder, more certain— _was that_? and _did you see_? and _I think it could be_ —

“So? What’d you think?” Luke asks in a low voice, suddenly at his side again, cheeks flushed, eyes bright. Bodhi automatically looks down, but Luke’s lightsaber is tucked out of sight; he glances around, but nobody nearby seems to have noticed the new arrival in their midst.

Subtle, indeed.

The two eldest Bothan children have already constructed an elaborate theory about a surviving Jedi enclave in the mountain caves, finally ready to emerge on the galactic stage. An older man nearby is loudly informing everyone in earshot that “some kriffing kid with a glowrod” must be to blame. The nearby stormtrooper has actually removed his helmet, which Bodhi knows is against regulation in public spaces, just to gape more openly in the direction the lightsaber beam had been.

Everyoneis talking about it, _everyone_. Far from going their separate ways, people are huddling closer together, conversation and connections only intensifying. Bodhi remembers his earlier thought, about the way these sort of planet-wide events have power to bring people together, to unite them toward a shared destiny. Sometimes, all a people need is something to look to—a story, a promise, a hope.

Bodhi thinks a lot of things in response to Luke's question, from _that was incredible_ to _that was incredibly dangerous_ , from _a million eclipses couldn’t hold a candle to the awe I feel when I look at you_ to _you fucking scared me, you asshole_.

Instead, he takes two fistfuls of Luke’s yellow jacket and hauls him in. Luke smiles against his lips, his fingers burying themselves in Bodhi’s hair. Bodhi tries to put everything he’s thinking into the kiss—and quickly gives up. He doesn’t speak the Mwahxi language, in which even the most complicated concepts can be communicated via kissing. He doesn’t have the necessary anatomy.

It doesn’t matter. This, all of this, is enough. The warmth of Luke’s hand at the nape of his neck. The way they pull briefly apart, hovering for a moment in that one-breath-apart space that sometimes feels more intimate than kissing, then come back together. The soft little whimper Luke makes when Bodhi bites his lower lip. The heat that rushes through him when he thinks that no one else gets to hear Luke make that sound, no one but him.

When he pulls back, Bodhi says the first thing that pops into his brain, which turns out to be “I’d follow you. Anywhere.”

Luke’s face lights up. Bodhi has to restrain himself from going for another kiss.

“Good,” Luke says, hand squeezing Bodhi’s hip, “because I’ve been looking into _triple_ eclipses, and there’s one in just a few months in the Riflorii system—technically, the planet it’ll be visible from is completely uninhabitable, and by that I mean its toxic atmosphere literally eats through bio-suits, but if we stay in orbit and time it just right—long enough to get a good view, but not so long that the ship’s plating starts to corrode—”

“Could we maybe start with _off this planet_ , though?” Bodhi interrupts. The stormtrooper has re-donned his helmet, and the Imperial officer from earlier is pushing his way toward a particularly vocal knot of people, the intensity of his expression dismissing any concept of off-duty. The Empire is moving to reestablish order, and however that pans out, Bodhi would rather not be around to see it.

“Of course,” Luke says lightly, taking Bodhi’s hand. He doesn’t have to fight against the tide of people; the crowd seems to melt away wherever he wants to go.

“Are the Jedi are coming back, Dad?” the little Bothan girl asks.

“Shh,” her father says, but just before they disappear from view, Bodhi hears him answer, “I hope so.”

Bodhi smiles, squeezes Luke’s hand, and follows.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos are greatly appreciated; comments are incredibly loved. ♥


End file.
